The scores are the work of two people: Tanikita Muchiku Roan*, the 37th Abbot of Myôan-ji, and Uramoto Setchô.

Around 1936, a man named Inagaki Ihaku began learning shakuhachi from Uramoto Setchô. A few years later, around 1940 or 1941 Inagaki found himself in China as an army doctor. He had his shakuhachi with him but did not have any scores.

Through his connections to Uramoto, Inagaki was able to arrange to have Tanikita, who was moved by Inagaki's desire to continue to play shakuhachi despite his situation in wartime China, send him a set of scores. These are the hand written scores in Book 1.

After the war, Inagaki returned to Japan and began studying with Tanikita. During his lessons he used the same scores that Tanikita had sent to him while he was in China. While taking lessons, Inagaki wrote notes on the individual scores.

The second book of four pieces, are the work of Uramoto Setchô. Inagaki had a complete set of Uramoto scores but only chose to publish the ones that he did not have that were necessary to supplement the scores from Tanikita

Because of the beauty of the original Tanikita scores, Inagaki intended to have his set of scores published. In 1986, after some 30 years of preparation, Inagaki was able to get the scores published.

In addition to preserving and publishing these scores, Inagaki was also instrumental in making the recordings of Tanikita that became a three cassette tape set of Myoan honkyoku. Tanikita did those recordings over several sessions between the age of 76 and 79. Most of the sessions were at the home of Inagaki.

Thanks to Bill Schultz for his translation work on the titles and the explanations that provided the content for these pages.